The Return (2003)

On a literal level,
The Return
is gripping enough. There are enough moments of conflict and tension, enough clashes between the characters to sustain an interesting, if unusual, story. But how much of a film is what the audience sees and hears? It’s the subtext, the gaps to be filled, the dissonance that makes
The Return
a compelling feature.

Brothers Andrey (Vladimir Garin) and Ivan (Ivan Dovronravov) return home one day to find their father (Konstantin Lavronenko) is back after being gone for twelve years. Without a word of his past, a reason for him leaving or returning, the father decides to take the two on a camping trip. And while their father is far from warm and pleasant, the two brothers find theirselves having two opposite reactions to him.

Andrey is in awe of his father. He doesn’t understand him, but he trusts him. Something about his mysterious gaze, the way he indifferently engages everything around him entrances Andrey. He’s eager to help him, quick to follow his word. But even he has some trepidations, such as when his father asks him to do something that Andrey thinks is immoral.

Ivan resents and hates his father. Ivan finds him needlessly strict, cruel and abusive. He sees no love in the man, finds him disgusting and ugly, fears that his father only wishes harm on him. Ivan takes it upon himself to usurp his father’s authority at every turn, refusing orders, resenting what he does agree to do and finding insidious ways to get back at his father, ways to inconvenience or frustrate him.

While the two sons see different things in this man, the audience is left with a more complicated and multifaceted character. Yes, he’s strict, even cold. And yes, there’s something enticing about how adult and cool he might look in the eyes of a child. The problem is that these two boys only see what they want to see in their father, and if the audience takes that as all this man is, then the film loses its nuance.

There’s more to this man than what his son’s experience with him on the trip. The last twelve years remains a lingering question. The only mention the father makes of his past is that he use to eat a lot of fish. But there’s also the suggestion that the audience only sees a segment of what these kids experience, that anything beyond what these two see in their father is intentionally a gap in the film. More than once, there’s a jarring incongruence between scenes.

More than anything else, the audience is left without intention. Why did the father return? What is this camping trip for? Is it for his sons? Is there something else he’s pursuing? It remains a strong portrait of fatherhood that these kids and the audience don’t know for certain. As a child, a father does things that seem cruel, unfair or mysterious and suspect. As a child, one cannot make sense of these things.

The strength of
The Return, that so much is left in-between the lines, in-between moments. It’s a marvelously crafted film and well made, but on an individual to individual basis, the power of the film likely has more to do with one’s personal relationship to the father. Therefore, while the craft and storytelling are fantastic, it’s not a film that spoke to me, although I certainly see how it has spoken to others.